Page 97 - Abhivruddhi

1. Background
Over the last three decades, the author had an opportunity to be
associated with various civil society organisations working with the
unorganised sector on community development projects. These have
allowed her a closer look at the unorganised sector, largely in 4 States of
India viz. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh.
With the Development Support Team, Pune, Maharashtra work was
carried out on socio-economic and digital empowerment of urban and
rural women through the Self-Help Group-Federation model since 1992.
It reached out to 10,000+ women in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad making
them financially-literate and lead those interested and inclined, towards
entrepreneurship. Many women from these communities have become
entrepreneurs and are leading a more prosperous life. However, they too
are dependent on the ecosystem that their businesses operate in.
The author’s work with CYDA, Pune and YouthAid Foundation,
Pune has given her the opportunity to develop strategies for young
entrepreneurs of this sector across India. The main focus was on creating
content on entrepreneurship development and digital financial literacy.
With this content, nearly 3000+ young women entrepreneurs were
trained and mentored in starting new businesses or strengthening their
existing businesses. In addition 10,000 women, youth and men were
trained in entrepreneurship through various programs across 10 states in
India. During the first lockdown, a study conducted, on the current status
of 300 small entrepreneurs in April 2020, revealed their status. Non-
essential businesses of many young entrepreneurs incurred losses and led
to their collapse, particularly during the lockdown period necessitated by
the pandemic.
COVID Action Collab (CAC) is a Pan-India, people-centric, multi-
disciplinary platform and works on relief, recovery and resilience-
building initiatives to support the most vulnerable communities impacted
by the COVID-19 pandemic. As an expert resource person on digital
empowerment, the author worked with CAC in developing a framework
for “Smart practices for Smart Vendors” based on which they were able
to build capacities of vendors and farmers in Telangana and Karnataka.
This provided insights into another slice of the unorganised sector. The
author has also been associated with Vrutti, Livelihood Impact Partners,
for building financial and digital literacy to empower the 5,000 women
fish vendors in Mumbai.
Working closely with the unorganised sector in setting up new

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